How The U.S. Grows More Food at Less Cost

We've discussed a number of times how the forecasts of doom (perpetual famines that would starve millions) made in the late 1960's and 1970's were completely wrong. What doomed the forecasts of doom were two things: warmer global temperatures and the Green Revolution. The latter was primarily due to the insights and research of the late Norman Borlaug.

Kansas State University Research and Extension

In the United States, many of us take our food for granted. It seems to magically appear at the grocery store. But, if we are to continue to provide nutritious food for ourselves and for a growing world, we must continue to research better ways of growing and producing crops. Most of this work is done by Kansas State University (KSU) and other land-grant colleges. 

Science360 has a brief article about some of that research being done at KSU. I cite this article because it centers around developing wheat that is more tolerant to higher nighttime temperatures. 

While the Al Gore hypothesis of accelerating and catastrophic global warming has been falsified, the climate has changed. The most important aspect of that change is warmer nighttime temperatures.  The warmer nighttime temperatures in spring mean longer growing seasons (good!). But, they can severely stress a crop during the heat of summer (bad!).

This research is hard work and, as the article indicates, most of the work is done at night. These unsung food research heroes are responsible for our food prosperity and deserve credit for the hard work they do.